Myth and Romance 

by Madison Cawein 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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Chap. Copyright No. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Myth and Romance 

Being a Book of Verses 
Bv MftDISON OWEIN 




G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
New York and London 

$\z Jtmckerforckjer |)ress 
1899 



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Copyright, 1899 

BY 

MADISON CAWEIN 




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TO 

MY FRIEND 

WILLIAM WARWICK THUM 



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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Visions and Voices 

Myth and Romance 3 

Genius Loci 4 

The Rain-Crow 6 

The Harvest Moon 8 

The Old Water-Mill 9 

Anthem of Dawn 13 

Dithyrambics 15 

Hymn to Desire 18 

Music 21 

Jotunheim 22 

Dionysia 25 

The Last Song 29 

Romaunt of the Oak 30 

Morgan le Fay 33 

The Dream of Roderick 35 

Zyps of Zirl 38 

The Glowworm 41 

Ghosts 43 

The Purple Valleys 44 

The Land of Illusion 45 

Spirit of Dreams 49 

Lines and Lyrics 

To a Wind-Flower 53 

Microcosm 53 

Fortune 54 

Death 54 



PAGE 

The Soul 55 

Conscience 55 

Youth 56 

Life's Seasons 57 

Old Homes 58 

Field and Forest Call 59 

Meeting in Summer 60 

Swinging 61 

Rosemary 62 

Ghost Stories 63 

Dolce far Niente 64 

Words 66 

Reasons 67 

Evasion 67 

In May 68 

Will you Forget ? 69 

Clouds of the Autumn Night .... 70 

The Glory and the Dream 71 

Snow and Fire 71 

Restraint 72 

Why Should I Pine ? 72 

When Lydia Smiles 73 

The Rose 74 

A Ballad of Sweethearts 74 

Her Portrait 75 

A Song for Yule 76 

The Puritans' Christmas 77 

Spring 79 

Lines 79 

When Ships put out to Sea 80 

The " Kentucky " 81 

Quatrains 82 

Processional 84 



PROEM. 

There is no rhyme that is half so sweet 
As the song of the wind in the rippling wheat ; 

There is no metre that 's half so fine 
As the lilt of the brook under rock and vine ; 
And the loveliest lyric I ever heard 

Was the wildwood strain of a forest bird. — 
If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach 
My heart their beautiful parts of speech, 
And the natural art that they say these with, 
My soul would sing of beauty and myth 
In a rhyme and a metre that none before 
Have sung in their love, or dreamed in their lore, 
And the world would be richer one poet the more. 



VISIONS AND VOICES 



Myth and 
Romance 

I 

T 1 7"HEN I go forth to greet the glad-faced Spring, 
Just at the time of opening apple-buds, 

When brooks are laughing, winds are whispering, 
On babbling hillsides or in warbling woods, 
There is an unseen presence that eludes : — 

Perhaps a Dryad, in whose tresses cling 
The loamy odors of old solitudes, 

Who, from her beechen doorway, calls ; and leads 
My soul to follow ; now with dimpling words 
Of leaves ; and now with syllables of birds ; 

While here and there — is it her limb.s that swing ? 

Or restless sunlight on the moss and weeds ? 

II 

Or, haply, 't is a Naiad now who slips, 

Like some white lily, from her fountain's glass, 

While from her dripping hair and breasts and hips, 
The moisture rains cool music on the grass. 
Her have I heard and followed, yet, alas ! 

Have seen no more than the wet ray that dips 
The shivered waters, wrinkling where I pass ; 

But, in the liquid light, where she doth hide, 
I have beheld the azure of her gaze 
Smiling ; and, where the orbing ripple plays, 

Among her minnows I have heard her lips, 

Bubbling, make merry by the waterside. 

Ill 

Or now it is an Oread — whose eyes 

Are constellated dusk — who stands confessed, 
As naked as a flow'r ; her heart's surprise, 



Like morning's rose, mantling her brow and 
breast : 

She, shrinking from my presence, all distressed 
Stands for a startled moment ere she flies, 

Her deep hair blowing, up the mountain crest, 
Wild as a mist that trails along the dawn. 

And is 't her footfalls lure me ? or the sound 

Of airs that stir the crisp leaf on the ground ? 
And is 't her body glimmers on yon rise ? 
Or dog- wood blossoms snowing on the lawn ? 

IV 

Now 't is a Satyr piping serenades 

On a slim reed. Now Pan and Faun advance 
Beneath green-hollowed roofs of forest glades, 

Their feet gone mad with music : now, per- 
chance, 

Sylvanus sleeping, on whose leafy trance 
The Nymphs stand gazing in dim ambuscades 

Of sun-embodied perfume. — Myth, Romance, 
Where'er I turn, reach out bewildering arms, 

Compelling me to follow. Day and night 

I hear their voices and behold the light 
Of their divinity that still evades, 
And still allures me in a thousand forms. 

Genius 
Loci 

I 

"VX THAT wood-god, on this water's mossy curb, 

Lost in reflections of earth's loveliness, 
Did I, just now, unconsciously disturb ? 

I, who haphazard, wandering at a guess, 
Came on this spot, wherein, with gold and flame 
Of buds and blooms, the season writes its name. — 



Ah, me ! could I have seen him ere alarm 
Of my approach aroused him from his calm ! 
As he, part Hamadryad and, mayhap, 

Part Faun, lay here ; who left the shadow warm 
As wild-wood rose, and filled the air with balm 
Of his sweet breath as with ethereal sap. 



II 



Does not the moss retain some vague impress, 
Green dented in, of where he lay or trod ? 

Do not the flow'rs, so reticent, confess 
With conscious looks the contact of a god ? 

Does not the very water garrulously 

Boast the indulgence of a deity ? 

And, hark ! in burly beech and sycamore 

How all the birds proclaim it ! and the leaves 
Rejoice with clappings of their myriad hands ! 

And shall not I believe, too, and adore, 
With such wide proof ? — Yea, though my soul 

perceives 
No evident presence, still it understands. 



Ill 



And for a while it moves me to lie down 
Here on the spot his god-head sanctified : 

Mayhap some dream he dreamed may lingert 
brown 
And young as joy, around the forestside ; 

Some dream within whose heart lives no disdain 

For such as I whose love is sweet and sane ; 

That may repeat, so none but I may hear — 
As one might tell a pearl-strung rosary — 
Some epic that the trees have learned to croon, 



Some lyric whispered in the wild-flower's ear, 
Whose murmurous lines are sung by bird and 

bee, 
And all the insects of the night and noon. 



IV 



For, all around me, upon field and hill, 

Enchantment lies as of mysterious flutes ; 
As if the music of a god's good-will 
Had taken on material attributes 
In blooms, like chords ; and in the water-gleam, 
That runs its silvery scales from stream to stream 
In sunbeam bars, up which the butterfly, 
A golden note, vibrates then flutters on — 
Inaudible tunes, blown on the pipes of Pan, 
That have assumed a visible entity, 
And drugged the air with beauty so, a Faun, 
Behold, I seem, and am no more a man. 

The 
Rain- Crow 



/^AN freckled August, — drowsing warm and 
— blonde 

Beside a wheat-shock in the white-topped mead, 
In her hot hair the oxeyed daisies wound, — 
O bird of rain, lend aught but sleepy heed 
To thee ? when no plumed weed, no feather'd 
seed 
Blows by her ; and no ripple breaks the pond, 
That gleams like flint between its rim of grasses, 
Through which the dragonfly forever passes 
Like splintered diamond. 



II 

Drouth weights the trees, and from the farmhouse 
eaves 
The locust, pulse-beat of the summer day, 
Throbs ; and the lane, that shambles under leaves 
Limp with the heat — a league of rutty way — 
Is lost in dust ; and sultry scents of hay 
Breathe from the panting meadows heaped with 
sheaves — 
Now, now, O bird, what hint is there of rain, £- 
In thirsty heaven or on burning plain, 

That thy keen eye perceives ? 

Ill 

But thou art right. Thou prophesiest true. 
For hardly hast thou ceased thy forecasting, 

When, up the western fierceness of scorched blue, 
Great water-carrier winds their buckets bring 
Brimming with freshness. How their dippers 
ring 

And flash and rumble ! lavishing dark dew 
On corn and forestland, that, streaming wet, 
Their hilly backs against the downpour set, 
Like giants vague in view. 

IV 

The butterfly, safe under leaf and flower, 
Has found a roof, knowing how true thou art ; 

The bumble-bee, within the last half-hour, 
Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart ; 
While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, 

Brood-hens have housed. — But I, who scorned thy 
power, 
Barometer of the birds, — like August there, — 
Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to hair, 
Like some drenched truant, cower. 

7 



The 
Harvest Moon 

I 

/~*LOBED in Heav'n's tree of azure, golden 
mellow 

As some round apple hung 
High in hesperian boughs, thou hangest yellow 

The branch-like mists among : 
Within thy light a sunburnt youth, named Health, 

Rests 'mid the tasseled shocks, the tawny stubble ; 
And by his side, clad on with rustic wealth 

Of field and farm, beneath thy amber bubble, 
A nut-brown maid, Content, sits smiling still : 

While through the quiet trees, 

The mossy rocks, the grassy hill, 
Thy silvery spirit glides to yonder mill, 

Around whose wheel the breeze 
And shimmering ripples of the water play, 
As, by their mother, little children may. 

II 

Sweet spirit of the moon, who walkest, — lifting 

Exhaustless on thy arm, 
A pearly vase of fire, — through the shifting 

Cloud-halls of calm and storm, 
Pour down thy blossoms ! let me hear them come, 

Pelting with noiseless light the twinkling thickets, 
Making the darkness audible with the hum 

Of many insect creatures, grigs and crickets : 
Until it seems the elves hold revelries 

By haunted stream and grove ; 

Or, in the night's deep peace, 
The young-old presence of Earth's full increase 

Seems telling thee her love, 
Ere, lying down, she turns to rest, and smiles, 
Hearing thy heart beat through the myriad miles. 

8 



The Old 
Water-Mill 

\ \ 7TLD ridge on ridge the wooded hills arise, 

Between whose breezy vistas gulfs of skies 
Pilot great clouds like towering argosies, 
And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze. 
With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach 
Of placid murmur, under elm and beech, 
The creek goes twinkling through long glows and 

glooms 
Of woodland quiet, poppied with perfumes : 
The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools 
Glitter or dart ; and by whose deeper pools 
The blue kingfishers and the herons haunt ; 
That, often startled from the freckled flaunt 
Of blackberry-lilies — where they feed and hide — 
Trail a lank flight along the forestside 
With eery clangor. Here a sycamore, 
Smooth, wave-uprooted, builds from shore to shore 
A headlong bridge ; and there, a storm-hurled oak 
Lays a long dam, where sand and gravel choke 
The water's lazy way. Here mistflower blurs 
Its bit of heaven ; there the oxeye stirs 
Its gloaming hues of bronze and gold ; and here, 
A gray cool stain, like dawn's own atmosphere, 
The dim wild-carrot lifts its crumpled crest : 
And over all, at slender flight or rest, 
The dragon-flies, like coruscating rays 
Of lapis-lazuli and chrysoprase, 
Drowsily sparkle through the summer days ; 
And, dewlap-deep, here from the noontide heat 
The bell-hung cattle find a cool retreat : 
And through the willows girdling the hill, 
Now far, now near, borne as the soft winds will, 
Comes the low rushing of the water-mill. 



Ah, lovely to me from a little child, 

How changed the place ! wherein once, undefiled, 

The glad communion of the sky and stream 

Went with me like a presence and a dream. 

Where once the brambled meads and orchardlands 

Poured ripe abundance down with mellow hands 

Of summer ; and the birds of field and wood 

Called to me in a tongue I understood ; 

And in the tangles of the old rail-fence 

Even the insect tumult had some sense, 

And every sound a happy eloquence ; 

And more to me than wisest books can teach, 

The wind and water said ; whose words did reach 

My soul, addressing their magnificent speech, 

Raucous and rushing, from the old mill-wheel, 

That made the rolling mill-cogs snore and reel, 

Like some old ogre in a fairy-tale 

Nodding above his meat and mug of ale. 

How memory takes me back the ways that lead — 
As when a boy — through woodland and through 

mead ! 
To orchards fruited ; or to fields in bloom ; 
Or briary fallows, like a mighty room, 
Through which the winds swing censers of 

perfume, 
And where deep blackberries spread miles of fruit ; — 
A splendid feast, that stayed the ploughboy's foot 
When to the tasseling acres of the corn 
He drove his team, fresh in the primrose morn ; 
And from the liberal banquet, nature lent, 
Took dewy handfuls as he whistling went. — 
A boy once more I stand with sunburnt feet 
And watch the harvester sweep down the wheat ; 
Or laze with warm limbs in the unstacked straw 



Nearby the thresher, whose insatiate maw 
Devours the sheaves, hot drawling out its hum — 
Like some great sleepy bee, above a bloom, 
Made drunk with honey — while, grown big with 

grain, 
The bulging sacks receive the golden rain. 
Again I tread the valley, sweet with hay, 
And hear the bob-white calling far away, 
Or wood-dove cooing in the elder-brake ; 
Or see the sassafras bushes madly shake 
As swift, a rufous instant, in the glen 
The red-fox leaps and gallops to his den ; 
Or, standing in the violet-colored gloam, 
Hear roadways sound with holiday riding home 
From church, or fair, or bounteous barbecue, 
Which the whole country to some village drew. 

How spilled with berries were its summer hills, 
And strewn with walnuts were its autumn rills — 
And chestnut burs ! fruit of the spring's long 

flowers, 
When from their tops the trees seemed streaming 

showers 
Of slender silver, cool, crepuscular, 
And like a nebulous radiance shone afar. 
And maples ! how their sappy hearts would gush 
Broad troughs of syrup, when the winter bush 
Steamed with the sugar-kettle, day and night, 
And all the snow was streaked with firelight. 
Then it was glorious ! the mill-dam's edge, 
One slant of frosty crystal, laid a ledge 
Of pearl across ; above which, sleeted trees 
Tossed arms of ice, that, clashing in the breeze, 
Tinkled the ringing creek with icicles, 
Thin as the peal of Elfland's Sabbath bells : 



A sound that in my city dreams I hear, 
That brings before me, under skies that clear, 
The old mill in its winter garb of snow, 
Its frozen wheel, a great hoar beard below, 
And its West windows, two deep eyes aglow. 

Ah, ancient mill, still do I picture o'er 

Thy cobwebbed stairs and loft and grain-strewn 

floor ; 
Thy door, — like some brown, honest hand of toil, 
And honorable with labor of the soil, — 
Forever open ; through which, on his back 
The prosperous farmer bears his bursting sack. 
And while the miller measures out his toll, 
Again I hear, above the cogs' loud roll, — 
That makes stout joist and rafter groan and sway, — 
The harmless gossip of the passing day : 
Good country talk, that tells how so-and-so 
Has died or married ; how curculio 
And codling-moth have ruined half the fruit, 
And blight plays mischief with the grapes to boot ; 
Or what the news from town ; next county fair ; 
How well the crops are looking everywhere : 
Now this, now that, on which their interests fix, 
Prospects for rain or frost, and politics. 
While, all around, the sweet smell of the meal 
Filters, warm-pouring from the grinding wheel 
Into the bin ; beside which, mealy white, 
The miller looms, dim in the dusty light. 

Again I see the miller's home, between 

The crinkling creek and hills of beechen green : 

Again the miller greets me, gaunt and brown, 

Who oft o'erawed me with his gray-browed frown 

And rugged mien : again he tries to reach 

My youthful mind with fervid scriptural speech. — 

12 






For he, of all the country-side confessed, 

The most religious was and happiest ; 

A Methodist, and one whom faith still led, 

No books except the Bible had he read — 

At least so seemed it to my younger head. — 

All things in earth and heav'n he'd prove by this, 

Be it a fact or mere hypothesis ; 

For to his simple wisdom, reverent, 

44 The Bible says" was all of argument. — 

God keep his soul ! his bones were long since laid 

Among the sunken gravestones in the shade 

Of those black-lichened rocks, that wall around 

The family burying-ground with cedars crowned ; 

Where bristling teasel and the brier combine 

With clambering wood-rose and the wild-grape vine 

To hide the stone whereon his name and dates 

Neglect, with mossy hand, obliterates. 



Anthem 
of Dawn 

I 

'T^HEN up the orient heights to the zenith, that 

balanced the crescent, — 
Up and far up and over, — the heaven grew 

erubescent, 
Vibrant with rose and with ruby from the hands of 

the harpist Dawn, 
Smiting symphonic fire on the firmament's barbiton : 
And the East was a priest who adored with offerings 

of gold and of gems, 
And a wonderful carpet unrolled for the inaccessible 

hems 

13 



Of the glistening robes of her limbs ; that, lily and 

amethyst, 
Swept glorying on and on through temples of cloud 

and mist. 

II 

Then out of the splendor and richness, that burned 

like a magic stone, 
The torrent suffusion that deepened and dazzled 

and broadened and shone, 
The pomp and the pageant of color, triumphal 

procession of glare, 
The sun, like a king in armor, breathing splendor 

from feet to hair, 
Stood forth with majesty girdled, as a hero who 

towers afar 
Where the bannered gates are bristling hells and 

the walls are roaring war : 
And broad on the back of the world, like a 

Cherubin's fiery blade, 
The effulgent gaze of his aspect fell in glittering 

accolade. 

Ill 

Then billowing blue, like an ocean, rolled from the 
shores of morn to even : 

And the stars, like rafts, went down : and the 
moon, like a ghost-ship, driven, 

A feather of foam, from port to port of the cloud- 
built isles that dotted, 

With pearl and cameo, bays of the day, her 
canvas webbed and rotted, 

Lay lost in the gulf of heaven : while over her 
mixed and melted 

The beautiful children of Morn, whose bodies are 
opal-belted ; 



The beautiful daughters of Dawn, who, over and 

under and after 
The rivered radiance, wrestled ; and rainbowed 

heaven with laughter 
Of halcyon sapphire. — O Dawn ! thou visible 

mirth, 
And hallelujah of Heaven ! hosanna of Earth ! 



Dithyramhi 



TEMPEST 

"\ \ .TRAPPED round of the night, as a monster is 

wrapped of the ocean, 
Down, down through vast storeys of darkness, 

behold, in the tower 
Of the heaven, the thunder ! on stairways of cloudy 

commotion, 
Colossal of tread, like a giant, from echoing hour 

to hour 
Goes striding in rattling armor . . . 
The Nymph, at her billow-roofed dormer 
Of foam ; and the Sylvan — green-housed — at her 

window of leaves appears ; 
— As a listening woman, who hears 
The approach of her lover, who comes to her arms 

in the night ; 
And, loosening the loops of her locks, 
With eyes full of love and delight, 
From the couch of her rest in ardor and haste 

arises. — 
The Nymph, as if breathed of the tempest, like 

fire surprises 

15 



tf- 



The riotous bands of the rocks, 

That face with a roar the shouting charge of the seas. 

The Sylvan, — through troops of the trees, 

Whose clamorous clans with gnarly bosoms keep 
hurling 

Themselves on the guns of the wind, — goes wheeling 
and whirling. 

The Nymph, of the waves' exultation upheld, her 
green tresses 

Knotted with flowers of the hollow white foam, 
dives screaming ; 

Then bounds to the arms of the storm, who boister- 
ously presses 

Her hair and wild form to his breast that is panting 
and streaming. 

The Sylvan, — hard-pressed by the wind, the Pan- 
footed air, — 

On the violent backs of the hills, — 

Like a flame that tosses and thrills 

From peak to peak when the world of spirits is out, — 

Is borne, as her rapture wills, 

With glittering gesture and shout : 

Now here in the darkness, now there, 

From the rain-like sweep of her hair, — 

Bewilderingly volleyed o'er eyes and o'er lips, — 

To the lambent swell of her limbs, her breasts and 
her hips, 

She flashes her beautiful nakedness out in the glare 

Of the tempest that bears her away, — 

That bears me away ! 

Away, over forest and^foam, over tree and spray, 

Far swifter than thought, far swifter than sound 
or than flame, 

Over ocean and pine, 

In arms of tumultuous"shadow and shine . . . 



1 6 



Though Sylvan and Nymph do not 

Exist, and only what 

Of terror and beauty I feel and I name 

As parts of the storm, the awe and the rapture 

divine 
That here in the tempest are mine, — 
The two are the same, the two are forever the same. 

II 

CALM 

Beautiful-bosomed, O night, in thy noon 

Move with majesty onward ! bearing, as lightly 

As a singer may bear the notes of an exquisite tune, 

The stars and the moon 

Through the clerestories high of the heaven, the 

firmament's halls ; 
Under whose sapphirine walls, 
June, hesperian June, 

Robed in divinity wanders. Daily and nightly 
The turquoise touch of her robe, that the violets 

star, 
The silvery fall of her feet, that lilies are, 
Fill the land with languorous light and perfume. — 
Is it the melody mute of burgeoning leaf and of 

bloom ? 
The music of Nature, that silently shapes in the 

gloom 
Immaterial hosts 
Of spirits that have the flowers and leaves in their 

keep, 
That I hear, that I hear ? 
Invisible ghosts, — 
Who whisper in leaves and glimmer in blossoms 

and hover 

17 



In color and fragrance and loveliness, breathed 

from the deep 
World-soul of the mother, 
Nature ; — who, over and over, 
Both sweetheart and lover, 
Goes singing her songs from one sweet month to 

the other, — 
That appear, that appear ? 
In forest and field, on hill-land and lea, 
As crystallized harmony, 
Materialized melody, 
An uttered essence peopling far and near 
The hyaline atmosphere ? . . . 
Behold how it sprouts from the grass and blooms 

from flower and tree ! 
In waves of diaphanous moonlight and mist, 
In fugue upon fugue of gold and of amethyst, 
Around me, above me it spirals ; now slower, now 

faster, 
Like symphonies born of the thought of a musical 

master. — 
— O music of Earth ! O God who the music 

inspired ! 
Let me breathe of the life of thy breath ! 
And so be fulfilled and attired 
In resurrection, triumphant o'er time and o'er death ! 



Hymn to 
Desire 



l\/r OTHER of visions, with lineaments dulcet 

as numbers 
Breathed on the eyelids of love by music that 
slumbers, 



Secretly, sweetly, O presence of fire and snow, 

Thou com est mysterious, 

In beauty imperious, 

Clad on with dreams and the light of no world that 

we know. 
Deep to my innermost soul am I shaken, 
Helplessly shaken and tossed, 
And of thy tyrannous yearnings so utterly taken, 
My lips, unsatisfied, thirst ; 
Mine eyes are accurst 
With longings for visions that far in the night are 

forsaken ; 
And mine ears, in listening lost, 
Yearn, yearn for the note of a chord that will 

never awaken. 



II 



Like palpable music thou comest, like moonlight ; 

and far, — 
Resonant bar upon bar, — 
The vibrating lyre 

Of the spirit responds with melodious fire, 
As thy fluttering fingers now grasp it and ardently 

shake, 
With flame and with flake, 

The chords of existence, the instrument star-sprung, 
Whose frame is of clay, so wonderfully molded 

from mire. 



Ill 



Vested with vanquishment, come, O Desire, Desire ! 
Breathe in this harp of my soul the audible angel 

of love ! 
Make of my heart an Israfel burning above, 

19 



A lute for the music of God, that lips, which are 

mortal, but stammer ! 
Smite every rapturous wire 

With golden delirium, rebellion and silvery clamor, 
Crying — " Awake ! awake ! 
Too long hast thou slumbered ! too far from the 

regions of glamour, 
With its mountains of magic, its fountains of Faery, 

the spar-sprung, 
Hast thou wandered away, O Heart ! 
Come, oh, come and partake 
Of necromance banquets of beauty ; and slake 
Thy thirst in the waters of art, 
That are drawn from the streams 
Of love and of dreams. 

IV 

" Come, oh, come ! 

No longer shall language be dumb ! 

Thy vision shall grasp — 

As one doth the glittering hasp 

Of a dagger made splendid with gems and with 

gold— 
The wonder and richness of life, not anguish and 

hate of it merely. 
And out of the stark 
Eternity, awful and dark, 
Immensity silent and cold, — 

Universe-shaking as trumpets, or thunderous metals 
That cymbal ; yet pensive and pearly 
And soft as the rosy unfolding of petals, 
Or crumbling aroma of blossoms that wither too 

early, — 
The majestic music of Death, where he plays 
On the organ of eons and days." 



Music 

qTHOU, oh, thou ! 

Thou of the chorded shell and golden plec- 
trum ! thou 
Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow ! 
Music, who by the plangent waves, 
Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves, 
Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars, 
Touchest reverberant bars 
Of immemorial sorrow and amaze ; — 
Keeping regret and memory awake, 
And all the immortal ache 
Of love that leans upon the past's sweet days 
In retrospection ! — now, oh, now, 
Interpreter and heart-physician, thou, 
Who gazest on the heaven and the hell 
Of life, and singest each as well, 
Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips, 
Or thy melodious lips, 
This sickness named my soul, 
Making it whole, 
As is an echo of a chord, 
Or some symphonic word, 
Or sweet vibrating sigh, 
That deep, resurgent still doth rise and die 
On thy voluminous roll ; 
Part of the beauty and the mystery 
That axles Earth with song ; and as a slave, 
Swings it around and 'round on each sonorous pole, 
'Mid spheric harmony, 
And choral majesty, 
And diapasoning of wind and wave ; 
And speeds it on its far elliptic way 
'Mid vasty anthemings of night and day. — 



21 



O cosmic cry 

Of two eternities, wherein we see 

The phantasms, Death and Life, 

At endless strife 

Above the silence of a monster grave. 



Jotunheim 

I 

TDEYOND the Northern Lights, in regions 

haunted 
Of twilight, where the world is glacier planted, 
And pale as Loki in his cavern when 
The serpent's slaver burns him to the bones, 
I saw the phantasms of gigantic men, 
The prototypes of vastness, quarrying stones ; 
Great blocks of winter, glittering with the morn's 
And evening's colors, — wild prismatic tones 
Of boreal beauty. — Like the three gray Norns, 
Silence and solitude and terror loomed 
Around them where they labored. Walls arose, 
Vast as the Andes when creation boomed 
Insurgent fire ; and through the rushing snows 
Enormous battlements of tremendous ice, 
Bastioned and turreted, 1 saw arise. 

II 

But who can sing the workmanship gigantic 
That reared within its coruscating dome 

The roaring fountain, hurling an Atlantic 

Of streaming ice that flashed with flame and 
foam ? 

An opal spirit, various and many formed, — 

In whose clear heart reverberant fire stormed, — 



Seemed its inhabitant ; and through pale halls, 

And deep diaphanous walls, 

And corridors of whiteness, 

Auroral colors swarmed, 

As rosy-flickering stains, 
Or lambent green, or gold, or crimson, warmed 
The pulsing crystal of the spirit's veins 

With ever-changing brightness. 
And through the Arctic night there went a voice, 
As if the ancient Earth cried out, " Rejoice ! 

My heart is full of lightness ! " 

III 

Here well might Thor, the god of war, 

Harness the whirlwinds to his car, 

While, mailed in storm, his iron arm 

Heaves high his hammer's lava-form, 

And red and black his beard streams back, 

Like some fierce torrent scoriae, 

Whose earthquake light glares through the night 

Around some dark volcanic height ; 

And through the skies Valkyrian cries 

Trumpet, as battleward he flies, 

Death in his hair and havoc in his eyes. 

IV 

Still in my dreams I hear that fountain flowing ; 
Beyond all seeing and beyond all knowing ; 
Still in my dreams I see those wild walls glowing 

With hues, Aurora-kissed ; 
And through huge halls fantastic phantoms going, 

Vast shapes of snow and mist, — 
Sonorous clarions of the tempest blowing, — 

That trail dark banners by, 

23 



Cloudlike, underneath the sky 
Of the caverned dome on high, 
Carbuncle and amethyst. — 
Still I hear the ululation 
Of their stormy exultation, 
Multitudinous, and blending 
In hoarse echoes, far, unending ; 
And, through halls of fog and frost, 
Howling back, like madness lost 
In the moonless mansion of 
Its own demon-haunted love. 



Still in my dreams I hear the mermaid singing ; 
The mermaid music at its portal ringing ; 
The mermaid song, that hinged with gold its door, 
And, whispering evermore, 
Hushed the ponderous hurl and roar 
And vast aeolian thunder 
Of the chained tempests under 
The frozen cataracts that were its floor. — 
And, blinding beautiful, I still behold 
The mermaid there, combing her locks of gold, 
While, at her feet, green as the Northern Seas, 
Gambol her flocks of seals and walruses ; 
While, like a drift, her dog — a Polar bear — 
Lies by her, glowering through his shaggy hair. 

VI 

O wondrous house, built by supernal hands 

In vague and ultimate lands ! 
Thy architects were behemoth wind and cloud, 

That, laboring loud, 
Mountained thy world foundations and uplifted 

Thy skyey bastions drifted 

24 



Of piled eternities of ice and snow ; 

Where storms, like ploughmen, go, 
Ploughing the deeps with awful hurricane ; 

Where, spouting icy rain, 
The huge whale wallows ; and through furious hail 

Th' explorer's tattered sail 
Drives like the wing of some terrific bird, 

Where wreck and famine herd. — 
Home of the red Auroras and the gods ! 
He who profanes thy perilous threshold, — where 

The ancient centuries lair, 
And, glacier-throned, thy monarch, Winter, nods, — 

Let him beware ! 
Lest, coming on that hoary presence there, 

Whose pitiless hand, 

Above that hungry land, 
An iceberg wields as sceptre, and whose crown 

The North Star is, set in a band of frost, 
He, too, shall feel the bitterness of that frown, 

And, turned to stone, forevermore be lost. 



Dionysia 

HP HE day is dead ; and in the west 

The slender crescent of the moon- 
Diana's crystal-kindled crest — 
Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon. 
What is the murmur in the dell ? 
The stealthy whisper and the drip ? — 
A Dryad with her leaf -light trip ? 
Or Naiad o'er her fountain well ? — 
Who, with white fingers for her comb, 
Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls 
Showers slim minnows and pale pearls, 

25 



And hollow music of the foam. 

What is it in the vistaed ways 

That leans and springs, and stoops and 

sways ? — 
The naked limbs of one who flees ? 
An Oread who hesitates 
Before the Satyr form that waits, 
Crouching to leap, that there she sees ? 
Or under boughs, reclining cool, 
A Hamadryad, like a pool 
Of moonlight, palely beautiful ? 
Or Limnad, with her lilied face, 
More lovely than the misty lace 
That haunts a star and gives it grace ? 
Or is it some Leimoniad, 
In wildwood flowers dimly clad ? 
Oblong blossoms white as froth ; 
Or mottled like the tiger-moth ; 
Or brindled as the brows of death ; 
Wild of hue and wild of breath. 
Here ethereal flame and milk 
Blent with velvet and with silk ; 
Here an iridescent glow 
Mixed with satin and with snow : 
Pansy, poppy and the pale 
Serpolet and galingale ; 
Mandrake and anemone, 
Honey-reservoirs o' the bee ; 
Cistus and the cyclamen, — 
Cheeked like blushing Hebe this, 
And the other white as is 
Bubbled milk of Venus when 
Cupid's baby mouth is pressed, 
Rosy, to her rosy breast. 
And, besides, all flowers that mate 



20 



With aroma, and in hue 
Stars and rainbows duplicate 
Here on earth for me and you. 

Yea ! at last mine eyes can see ! 

' Tis no shadow of the tree 

Swaying softly there, but she ! — 

Maenad, Bassarid, Bacchant, 

What you will, who doth enchant 

Night with sensuous nudity. 

Lo ! again I hear her pant 

Breasting through the dewy glooms — 

Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers 

Of the starlight ; — wood-perfumes 

Swoon around her and frail showers 

Of the leaflet-tilted rain. 

Lo, like love, she comes again, 

Through the pale, voluptuous dusk, 

Sweet of limb with breasts of musk. 

With her lips, like blossoms, breathing 

Honeyed pungence of her kiss, 

And her auburn tresses wreathing 

Like umbrageous helichrys, 

There she stands, like fire and snow, 

In the moon's ambrosial glow, 

Both her shapely loins low-looped 

With the balmy blossoms, drooped, 

Of the deep amaracus. 

Spiritual yet sensual, 

Lo, she ever greets me thus 

In my vision ; white and tall, 

Her delicious body there, — 

Raimented with amorous air, — 

To my mind expresses all 

The allurements of the world. 

And once more I seem to feel 



27 



On my soul, like frenzy, hurled 

All the passionate past. — I reel, 

Greek again in ancient Greece, 

In the Pyrrhic revelries ; 

In the mad and Maenad dance 

Onward dragged with violence ; 

Pan and old Silenus and 

Faunus and a Bacchant band 

Round me. Wild my wine-stained hand 

O'er tumultuous hair is lifted ; 

While the flushed and Phallic orgies 

Whirl around me ; and the marges 

Of the wood are torn and rifted 

With lascivious laugh and shout. 

And barbarian there again, — 

Shameless with the shameless rout, 

Bacchus lusting in each vein, — 

With her pagan lips on mine, 

Like a god made drunk with wine, 

On I reel ; and, in the revels, 

Her loose hair, the dance dishevels, 

Blows, and 'thwart my vision swims 

All the splendor of her limbs. . . . 

So it seems. Yet woods are lonely. 

And when I again awake, 

I shall find their faces only 

Moonbeams in the boughs that shake ; 

And their revels, but the rush 

Of night-winds through bough and brush. 

Yet my dreaming — is it more 

Than mere dreaming ? Is some door 

Opened in my soul ? a curtain 

Raised ? to let me see for certain 

I have lived that life before ? 



28 



The Last 

Song 

CHE sleeps ; he sings to her. The day was long , 

And, tired out with too much happiness, 
She fain would have him sing of old Provence ; 
Quaint songs, that spoke of love in such soft tones, 
Her restless soul was straight besieged of dreams, 
And her wild heart beleagured of deep peace, 
And heart and soul surrendered unto sleep. — 
Like perfect sculpture in the moon she lies, 
Its pallor on her through heraldic panes 
Of one tall casement's guled quarterings. — 
Beside her couch, an antique table, weighed 
With gold and crystal ; here, a carven chair, 
Whereon her raiment, — that suggests sweet curves 
Of shapely beauty, — bearing her limbs' impress, 
Is richly laid : and, near the chair, a glass, 
An oval mirror framed in ebony : 
And, dim and deep, — investing all the room 
With ghostly life of woven women and men, 
And strange fantastic gloom, where shadows live, — 
Dark tapestry, — which in the gusts — that twinge 
A grotesque cresset's slender star of light — 
Seems moved of cautious hands, assassin-like, 
That wait the hour. 

She alone, deep-haired 
As rosy dawn, and whiter than a rose, 
Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love, 
Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon, 
Like Danae within the golden shower. 
Seated beside her aromatic rest, 
In rapture musing on her loveliness, 
Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope 
The curious baldric of his tunic, glints 

29 



With pearl-reflections of the moon, that seem 
The silent ghosts of long-dead melodies. 
In purple and sable, slashed with solemn gold, 
Like stately twilight o'er the snow-heaped hills, 
He bends above her. — 

Have his hands forgot 
Their craft, that they pause, idle on the strings ? 
His lips, their art, that they cease, speechless 

there ? — 
His eyes are set. . . . What is it stills to stone 
His hands, his lips ? and mails him, head and heel, 
In terrible marble, motionless and cold ? — 
Behind the arras, can it be he feels, 
Black-browed and grim, with eyes of sombre fire, 
Death towers above him with uplifted sword ? 



Romaunt of 
the Oak 



1 



RODE to death, for I fought for shame- 
The Lady Maurine of noble name, 



" The fair and faithless ! — Though life be long 
Is love the wiser ? — Love made song 

' ' Of all my life ; and the soul that crept 
Before, arose like a star and leapt : 

" Still leaps with the love that it found untrue, 
That it found unworthy. — Now run me through ! 

" Yea, run me through ! for meet and well, 
And a jest for laughter of fiends in hell, 

" It is that I, who have done no wrong, 
Should die by the hand of Hugh the Strong, 

30 



" Of Hugh her leman ! — What else could be- 
When the devil was judge twixt thee and me ? 

" He splintered my lance, and my blade he broke- 
Now finish me thou 'neath the trysting oak ! " . . 

The crest of his foeman,— a heart of white 
In a bath of fire, — stooped i' the night ; 

Stooped and laughed as his sword he swung, 
Then galloped away with a laugh on his tongue. . . 

But who is she in the gray, wet dawn, 
'Mid the autumn shades like a shadow wan ? 

Who kneels, one hand on her straining breast, 
One hand on the dead man's bosom pressed ? 

Her face is dim as the dead's ; as cold 
As his tarnished harness of steel and gold. 

O Lady Maurine ! O Lady Maurine ! 
What boots it now that regret is keen ? 

That his hair you smooth, that you kiss his brow 
What boots it now ? what boots it now ? . . . 

She has haled him under the trysting oak, 
The huge old oak that the creepers cloak. 

She has stood him, gaunt in his battered arms, 
In its haunted hollow. — " Be safe from storms," 

She laughed as his cloven casque she placed 
On his brow, and his riven shield she braced. 

Then sat and talked to the forest flowers 
Through the lonely term of the day's pale hours. 

And stared and whispered and smiled and wept, 
While nearer and nearer the evening crept. 

3i 



And, lo, when the moon, like a great gold bloom 
Above the sorrowful trees did loom, 

She rose up sobbing, " O moon, come see 
My bridegroom here in the old oak-tree ! 

14 I have talked to the flowers all day, all day, 
For never a word had he to say. 

" He would not listen, he would not hear, 
Though I wailed my longing into his ear. 

" O moon, steal in where he stands so grim, 
And tell him I love him, and plead with him. 

" Soften his face that is cold and stern 
And brighten his eyes and make them burn, 

" O moon, O moon, so my soul can see 

That his heart still glows with love for me ! ". . . 

When the moon was set, and the woods were dark, 
The wild deer came and stood as stark 

As phantoms with eyes of fire ; or fled 
Like a ghostly hunt of the herded dead. 

And the hoot-owl called ; and the were-wolf snarled ; 
And a voice, in the boughs of the oak-tree gnarled, — 

Like the whining rush of the hags that ride 
To the witches' sabboth, — crooned and cried. 

And wrapped in his mantle of wind and cloud 
The storm-fiend stalked through the forest loud. 

When she heard the dead man rattle and groan 
As the oak was bent and its leaves were blown, 

And the lightning vanished and shimmered his mail, 
Through the swirling sweep of the rain and hail, 

32 



She seemed to hear him, who seemed to call, — 
" Come hither, Maurine, the wild leaves fall ! 

" The wild leaves rustle, the wild leaves flee ; 
Come hither, Maurine, to the hollow tree ! 

" To the trysting tree, to the tree once green ; 
Come hither, Maurine! come hither, Maurine ! " . . . 

They found her closed in his armored arms — 

Had he claimed his bride on that night of storms ? 



Morgan le 
Fay 

T N dim samite was she bedight, 

And on her hair a hoop of gold, 
Like fox-fire in the tawn moonlight, 
Was glimmering cold. 

With soft gray eyes she gloomed and glowered ; 

With soft red lips she sang a song : 
What knight might gaze upon her face, 
Nor fare along ? 

For all her looks were full of spells, 

And all her words of sorcery ; 
And in some way they seemed to say 
" Oh, come with me ! 

"Oh, come with me ! oh, come with me ! 

Oh, come with me, my love, Sir Kay ! " — 
How should he know the witch, I trow, 
Morgan le Fay ? 

33 



How should he know the wily witch, 

With sweet white face and raven hair ? 
Who by her art bewitched his heart 
And held him there. 

For soul and sense had waxed amort 

To wold and weald, to slade and stream ; 
And all he heard was her soft word 
As one adream. 

And all he saw was her bright eyes, 

And her fair face that held him still ; 
And wild and wan she led him on 
O'er vale and hill. 

Until at last a castle lay 

Beneath the moon, among the trees ; 
Its Gothic towers old and gray 
With mysteries. 

Tall in its hall an hundred knights 

In armor stood with glaive in hand ; 
The following of some great King, 
Lord of that land. 

Sir Bors, Sir Balin, and Gawain, 

All Arthur's knights, and many mo ; 
But these in battle had been slain 
Long years ago. 

But when Morgan with lifted hand 

Moved down the hall, they louted low ; 
For she was Queen of Shadowland, 
That woman of snow. 

Then from Sir Kay she drew away, 

And mocking at him by her side, — 
" Behold, Sir Knights, the knave who slew 
Your Kins:," she cried. 



34 



Then like one man those shadows raised 

Their swords, whereon the moon glanced gray 
And clashing all strode from the wall 
Against Sir Kay. 

And on his body, bent and bowed, 

The hundred blades like one blade fell ; 
While over all rang long and loud 
The mirth of Hell. 



The Dream 
of Roderick 

"DELOW, the tawny Tagus swept 

Past royal gardens, breathing balm ; 
Upon his couch the monarch slept ; 
The world was still ; the night was calm. 

Gray, Gothic-gated, in the ray 

Of moonrise, tower- and castle-crowned, 

The city of Toledo lay 

Beneath the terraced palace-ground. 

Again, he dreamed, in kingly sport 
He sought the tree-sequestered path, 
And watched the ladies of his Court 
Within the marble-basined bath. 

Its porphyry stairs and fountained base 
Shone, houried with voluptuous forms, 
Where Andalusia vied in grace 
With old Castile, in female charms. 

And laughter, song, and water-splash 
Rang round the place, with stone arcaded, 
As here a breast or limb would flash 
Where beauty swam or beauty waded. 



35 



And then, like Venus, from the wave 
A maiden came, and stood below ; 
And by her side a woman slave 
Bent down to dry her limbs of snow. 

Then on the tesselated bank, 
Robed on with fragrance and with fire, — 
Like some exotic flower — she sank, 
The type of all divine desire. 

Then her dark curls, that sparkled wet, 
She parted from her perfect brows, 
And, lo, her eyes, like lamps of jet 
Within an alabaster house. 

And in his sleep the monarch sighed, 
" Florinda ! " — Dreaming still he moaned, 
" Ah, would that I had died, had died ! 
I have atoned ! I have atoned ! " . . . 

And then the vision changed : O'erhead 
Tempest and darkness were unrolled, 
Full of wild voices of the dead, 
And lamentations manifold. 

And wandering shapes of gaunt despair 
Swept by, with faces pale as pain, 
Whose eyes wept blood and seemed to glare 
Fierce curses on him through the rain. 

And then, it seemed, 'gainst blazing skies 
A necromantic tower sate, 
Crag-like on crags, of giant size ; 
Of adamant its walls and gate. 

And from the storm a hand of might 
Red-rolled in thunder, reached among 
The gate's huge bolts — that burst ; and night 
Clanged ruin as its hinges swung. 

36 



Then far away a murmur trailed, — 

As of sad seas on cavern 'd shores, — 

That grew into a voice that wailed, 

" They come ! they come ! the Moors ! the Moors ! 

And with deep boom of atabals 
And crash of cymbals and wild peal 
Of battle-bugles, from its walls 
An army rushed in glimmering steel. 

And where it trod he saw the torch 
Of conflagration stalk the skies, 
And in the vanward of its march 
The monster form of Havoc rise. 

And Paynim war-cries rent the storm, 
Athwart whose firmament of flame, 
Destruction reared an earthquake form 
On wreck and death without a name . 

And then again the vision changed : 
Where flows the Guadalete, see, 
The warriors of the Cross are ranged 
Against the Crescent's chivalry. 

With roar of trumpets and of drums 

They meet ; and in the battle's van 

He fights ; and, towering towards him, comes 

Florinda's father, Julian ; 

And one-eyed Taric, great in war : 
And where these couch their burning spears, 
The Christian phalanx, near and far, 
Goes down like corn before the shears. 

The Moslem wins : the Christian flies : 
" Allah il Allah," hill and plain 
Reverberate : the rocking skies, 
" Allah il Allah," shout again. 

37 



And then he dreamed the swing of swords 
And hurl of arrows were nc more ; 
But, louder than the howling hordes, 
Strange silence fell on field and shore. 

And through the night, it seemed, he fled, 
Upon a white steed like a star, 
Across a field of endless dead, 
Beneath a blood-red scimitar 

Of sunset : And he heard a moan, 
Beneath, around, on every hand — 
" Accursed ! Yea, what hast thou done 
To bring this curse upon thy land ?" 

And then an awful sense of wings : 
And, lo ! the answer — " ' T was his lust 
That was his crime. Behold ! E'en kings 
Must reckon with Me. All are dust." 



Zyps of 
Zirl 

HPHE Alps of the Tyrol are dark with pines, 

Where, foaming under the mountain spines, 
The Inn's long water sounds and shines. 

Beyond, are peaks where the morning weaves 
An icy rose ; and the evening leaves 
The glittering gold of a thousand sheaves. 

Deep vines and torrents and glimmering haze, 
And sheep-bells tinkling on mountain ways, 
And fluting shepherds make sweet the days. 

The rolling mist, like a wandering fleece, 
The great round moon in a mountain crease, 
And a song of love make the nights all peace. 

38 



Beneath the blue Tyrolean skies 

On the banks of the Inn, that foams and flies, 

The storied city of Innsbruck lies. 

With its mediaeval streets, that crook, 
And its gabled houses, it has the look 
Of a belfried town in a fairy-book. 

So wild the Tyrol that oft, 't is said, 
When the storm is out and the town in bed, 
The howling of wolves sweeps overhead. 

And oft the burgher, sitting here 

In his walled rose-garden, hears the clear 

Shrill scream of the eagle circling near. 

And this is the tale that the burghers tell : — 
The Abbot of Wiltau stood at his cell 
Where the Solstein lifts its pinnacle. 

A mighty summit of bluffs and crags 

That frowns on the Inn ; where the forest stags 

Have worn a path to the water-flags. 

The Abbot of Wiltau stood below ; 

And he was aware of a plume and bow 

On the precipice there in the morning's glow. 

A chamois, he saw, from span to span 
Had leapt ; and after it leapt a man ; 
And he knew ' t was the Kaiser Maxmilian. 

But, see ! though rash as the chamois he, 

His foot less sure. And verily 

If the King should miss . . . " Jesu, Marie 

" The King hath missed ! " — And, look, he falls ! 
Rolls headlong out to the headlong walls. 
What saint shall save him on whom he calls ? 

39 



What saint shall save him, who struggles there 

On the narrow ledge by the eagle's lair, 

With hooked hands clinging 'twixt earth and air ? 

The Abbot, he crosses himself in dread — 
" Let prayers go up for the nearly dead, 
And the passing-bell be tolled," he said. 

14 For the House of Hapsburg totters ; see, 

How raveled the thread of its destiny, 

Sheer hung between cloud and rock ! " quoth he. 

But hark ! where the steeps of the peak reply, 

Is it an eagle's echoing cry ? 

And the flitting shadow, its plumes on high ? 

No voice of the eagle is that which rings ! 
And the shadow, a wiry man who swings 
Down, down where the desperate Kaiser clings. 

The crampons bound to his feet, he leaps 
Like a chamois now ; and again he creeps 
Or twists, like a snake, o'er the fearful deeps. 

" By his cross-bow, baldrick, and cap's black curl," 
Quoth the Abbot below, " I know the churl ! 
' T is the hunted outlaw Zyps of Zirl. 

" Upon whose head, or dead or alive, 

The Kaiser hath posted a price. — Saints shrive 

The King ! " quoth Wiltau. " Who may contrive 

" To save him now that his foe is there ? " — 
But, listen ! again through the breathless air 
What words are those that the echoes bear ? 

" Courage, my King ! — To the rescue, ho ! " 
The wild voice rings like a twanging bow, 
And the staring Abbot stands mute below. 

40 



And, lo ! the hand of the outlaw grasps 
The arm of the King — and death unclasps 
Its fleshless fingers from him who gasps. 

And how he guides ! where the clean cliffs wedge 
Them flat to their faces ; by chasm and ledge 
He helps the King from the merciless edge. 

Then up and up, past bluffs that shun 

The rashest chamois ; where eagles sun 

Fierce wings and brood ; where the mists are spun. 

And safe at last stand Kaiser and churl 

On the mountain path where the mosses curl — 

And this the revenge of Zyps of Zirl. 



The 

Glowworm 

T T OW long had I sat there and had not beheld 

The gleam of the glow-worm till something 
compelled ! . . . 

The heaven was starless, the forest was deep, 

And the vistas of darkness stretched silent in sleep. 

And late 'mid the trees had I lingered until 
No thing was awake but the lone whippoorwill. 

And haunted of thoughts for an hour I sat 

On a lichen-gray rock where the moss was a mat. 

And thinking of one whom my heart had held dear, 
Like terrible waters, a gathering fear 

Came stealing upon me with all the distress 
Of loss and of yearning and powerlessness : 

41 



Till the hopes and the doubts and the sleepless 

unrest 
That, swallow-like, built in the home of my breast, 

Now hither, now thither, now heavenward flew, 
Wild-winged as the winds are : now suddenly drew 

My soul to abysses of nothingness where 
All light was a shadow, all hope, a despair : 

Where truth, that religion had set upon high, 
The darkness distorted and changed to a lie : 

And dreams of the beauty ambition had fed 
Like leaves of the autumn fell blighted and dead. 

And I rose with my burden of anguish and doom, 
And cried, " O my God, had I died in the womb ! 

" Than born into night, with no hope of the morn, 
An heir unto shadows, to live so forlorn ! 

" All effort is vain ; and the planet called Faith 
Sinks down ; and no power is real but death. 

" Oh, light me a torch in the deepening dark 
So my sick soul may follow, my sad heart may 
mark ! " — 

And then in the darkness the answer ! — It came 
From Earth not from Heaven — a glimmering 
flame, 

Behold, at my feet ! In the shadow it shone 
Mysteriously lovely and dimly alone : 

An ember ; a sparkle of dew and of glower ; 
Like the lamp that a spirit hangs under a flower : 

As goldenly green as the phosphorus star 
A fairy may wear in her diadem's bar : 

42 



An element essence of moonlight and dawn 

That, trodden and trampled, burns on and burns on. 

And hushed was my soul with the lesson of light 
That God had revealed to me there in the night : 

Though mortal its structure, material its form, 
The spiritual message of worm unto worm. 



Ghosts 

"f X7"AS it the strain of the waltz that, repeating 

" Love," so bewitched me ? or only the gleam 
There of the lustres, that set my heart beating, 
Feeling your presence as one feels a dream ? 

For, on a sudden, the woman of fashion, 
Soft at my side in her diamonds and lace, 
Vanished, and pale with reproach or with passion, 
You, my dead sweetheart, smiled up in my face. 

Music, the nebulous lights, and the sifting 

Fragrance of women made amorous the air ; 

Born of these three and my thoughts you came 

drifting, 
Clad in dim muslin, a rose in your hair. 

There in the waltz, that followed the lancers, 
Hard to my breast did I crush you and hold ; 
Far through the stir and the throng of the dancers 
Onward I bore you as often of old. 

Pale were your looks ; and the rose in your tresses 
Paler of hue than the dreams we have lost ; — 
" Who," then I said, " is it sees or who guesses, 
Here in the hall, that I dance with a ghost ? " 

43 



Gone ! And the dance and the music are ended. 
Gone ! And the rapture dies out of the skies. 
And, on my arm, in her elegance splendid, 
The woman of fashion smiles up in my eyes. 

Had I forgotten ? and did you remember ? — 
You, who are dead, whom I cannot forget ; 
You, for whose sake all my heart is an ember 
Covered with ashes of dreams and regret. 



The Purple 
Valleys 

Tj*AR in the purple valleys of illusion 

I see her waiting, like the soul of music, 
With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies, 
Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison ; 
With red lips, sweeter than Arabian storax, 
Yet bitterer than myrrh. — O tears and kisses ! 
O eyes and lips, that haunt my soul forever ! 

Again Spring walks transcendent on the mountains : 
The woods are hushed : the vales are blue with 

shadows : 
Above the heights, steeped in a thousand splendors, 
Like some vast canvas of the gods, hangs burning 
The sunset's wild sciography : and slowly 
The moon treads heaven's proscenium, — night's 

stately 
White queen of love and tragedy and madness. 

Again I know forgotten dreams and longings ; 
Ideals lost ; desires dead and buried 
Beside the altar sacrifice erected 
Within the heart's high sanctuary. Strangely 
Again I know the horror and the rapture, 

44 



The utterless awe, the joy akin to anguish, 
The terror and the worship of the spirit. 

Again I feel her eyes pierce through and through 

me ; 
Her deep eyes, lovelier than imperial pansies, 
Velvet and flame, through which her fierce will 

holds me, 
Powerless and tame, and draws me on and onward 
To sad, unsatisfied and animal yearnings, 
Wild, unrestrained — the brute within the human — 
To fling me panting on her mouth and bosom. 

Again I feel her lips like ice and fire, 

Her red lips, odorous as Arabian storax, 

Fragrance and fire, within whose kiss destruction 

Lies serpent-like. Intoxicating languors 

Resistlessly embrace me, soul and body ; 

And we go drifting, drifting — she is laughing — 

Outcasts of God, into the deep's abysm. 

The Land 
of Illusion 

I 

CO we had come at last, my soul and I, 

Into that land of shadowy plain and peak, 
On which the dawn seemed ever about to break 
On which the day seemed ever about to die. 

II 

Long had we sought fulfillment of our dreams, 
The everlasting wells of Joy and Youth ; 
Long had we sought the snow-white flow'r of 
Truth, 

That blooms eternal by eternal streams. 

45 



Ill 



And, fonder still, we hoped to find the sweet 
Immortal presence, Love ; the bird Delight 
Beside her ; and, eyed with sidereal night, 

Faith, like a lion, fawning at her feet. 

IV 

But, scorched and barren, in its arid •well, 

We found our dreams' forgotten fountain-head ; 
And by black, bitter waters, crushed and dead, 

Among wild weeds, Truth's trampled asphodel. 



And side by side with pallid Doubt and Pain, 
Not Love, but Grief did meet us there : afar 
We saw her, like a melancholy star, 

Or pensive moon, move towards us o'er the plain. 



VI 



Sweet was her face as song that sings of home ; 

And filled our hearts with vague, suggestive 
spells 

Of pathos, as sad ocean fills its shells 
With sympathetic moanings of its foam. 



VII 



She raised one hand and pointed silently, 

Then passed ; her eyes, gaunt with a thirst 

unslaked, 
Were worlds of woe, where tears in torrents 
ached, 
Yet never fell. And like a winter sea, — 

46 



VIII 

Whose caverned crags are haunts of wreck and 
wrath, 
That house the condor pinions of the storm, — 
My soul replied ; and, weeping, arm in arm, 

To'ards those dim hills, by that appointed path, 

IX 

We turned and went. Arrived, we did discern 
How Beauty beckoned, white 'mid miles of 

flowers, 
Through which, behold, the amaranthine Hours 

Like maidens went each holding up an urn ; 

X 

Wherein, it seemed — drained from long chalices 
Of those slim flow'rs — they bore mysterious wine ; 
A poppied vintage, full of sleep divine 

And pale forgetting of all miseries. 



XI 



Then to my soul I said, " No longer weep. 
Come, let us drink ; for hateful is the sky, 
And earth is full of care, and life 's a lie. 

So let us drink ; yea, let us drink and sleep." 

XII 

Then from their brimming urns we drank sweet 
must, 
While, all around us, rose-crowned faces laughed 
Into our eyes ; but hardly had we quaffed 

When, one by one, these crumbled into dust. 

47 



XIII 

And league on league the eminence of blooms, 
That flashed and billowed like a summer sea, 
Rolled out a waste of thorns and tombs ; where 
bee 

And butterfly and bird hung dead in looms 

XIV 

Of worm and spider. And through tomb and brier, 
A thin wind, parched with thirsty dust and sand, 
Went wailing as if mourning some lost land 

Of perished empire, Babylon or Tyre. 



XV 



Long, long with blistered feet we wandered in 
That land of ruins, through whose sky of brass 
Hate's Harpy shrieked ; and in whose iron grass 

The Hydra hissed of undestroyable Sin. 

XVI 

And there at last, behold, the House of Doom, — 
Red, as if Hell had glared it into life, 
Blood-red, and howling with incessant strife, — 

With burning battlements, towered in the gloom. 

XVII 

And throned within sat Darkness. — Who might gaze 
Upon that form, that threatening presence there, 
Crowned with the flickering corpse-lights of De- 
spair, 

And yet escape sans madness and amaze ? 

48 



XVIII 

And we had hoped to find among these hills 
The House of Beauty ! — Curst, yea, thrice accurst, 
The hope that lures one on from last to first 

With vain illusions that no time fulfills ! 

XIX 

Why will we struggle to attain, and strive, 
When all we gain is but an empty dream ? — 
Better, unto my thinking, doth it seem 

To end it all and let who will survive ; 

XX 

To find at last all beauty is but dust ; 

That love and sorrow are the very same ; 

That joy is only suffering's sweeter name ; 
And sense is but the synonym of lust. 

XXI 

Far better, yea, to me it seems to die ; 

To set glad lips against the lips of Death — 
The only thing God gives that comforteth, 

The only thing we do not find a lie. 



Spirit of 
Dreams 



"tTLTHERE hast thou folded thy pinions, 

Spirit of Dreams ? 
Hidden elusive garments 

Woven of gleams ? 
In what divine dominions, 

49 



Brighter than day, 
Far from the world's dark torments, 

Dost thou stay, dost thou stay ? — 
When shall my yearnings reach thee 

Again ? 
Not in vain let my soul beseech thee ! 

Not in vain ! not in vain ! 



II 



I have longed for thee as a lover 

For her, the one ; 
As a brother for a sister 

Long dead and gone. 
I have called thee over and over 

Names sweet to hear ; 
With words than music trister, 

And thrice as dear. 
How long must my sad heart woo thee, 

Yet fail ? 
How long must my soul pursue thee, 

Nor avail, nor avail ? 

Ill 

All night hath thy loving mother, 

Beautiful Sleep, 
X-ying beside me, listened 

And heard me weep. 
But ever thou soughtest another 

Who sought thee not ; 
For him thy soft smile glistened — 

I was forgot. 
When shall my soul behold thee 

As before ? 
When shall my heart infold thee ? — 

Nevermore ? nevermore ? 



50 



LINES AND LYRICS 



51 



To a Wind- 
Flower 

I 

'T^EACH me the secret of thy loveliness, 

That, being made wise, I may aspire to be 
As beautiful in thought, and so express 

Immortal truths to earth's mortality; 
Though to my soul ability be less 

Than 't is to thee, O sweet anemone. 

II 

Teach me the secret of thy innocence, 

That in simplicity I may grow wise ; 
Asking from Art no other recompense 

Than the approval of her own just eyes ; 
So may I rise to some fair eminence, 

Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies. 

Ill 

Teach me these things ; through whose high know- 
ledge, I, — 
When Death hath poured oblivion through my 
veins, 
And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie 
In that vast house, common to serfs and 
Thanes, — 
I shall not die, I shall not utterly die, 
For beauty born of beauty — that remains. 

Microcosm 



n^HE memory of what we've lost 

Is with us more than what we've won 
Perhaps because we count the cost 
By what we could, yet have not done. 

53 



'Twixt act and purpose fate hath drawn 
Invisible threads we can not break, 
And puppet-like these move us on 
The stage of life, and break or make. 

Less than the dust from which we're wrought, 
We come and go, and still are hurled 
From change to change, from naught to naught, 
Heirs of oblivion and the world. 



Fortune 

Vy ITHIN the hollowed hand of God, 

Blood-red they lie, the dice of fate, 
That have no time nor period, 
And know no early and no late. 

Postpone you can not, nor advance 
Success or failure that 's to be ; 
All fortune, being born of chance, 
Is bastard-child to destiny. 

Bow down your head, or hold it high, 
Consent, defy — no smallest part 
Of this you change, although the die 
Was fashioned from your living heart. 



Death 

/ T*H ROUGH some strange sense of sight or touch 

I find what all have found before, 
The presence I have feared so much, 
The unknown's immaterial door. 

54 



I seek not and it comes to me : 

I do not know the thing I find : 

The fillet of fatality 

Drops from my brows that made me blind. 



Point forward now or backward, light 
The way I take I may not choose : 
Out of the night into the night, 
And in the night no certain clews. 



But on the future, dim and vast, 
And dark with dust and sacrifice, 
Death's towering ruin from the past 
Makes black the land that round me lies. 



The 
Soul 



A N heritage of hopes and fears 
And dreams and memory, 
And vices of ten thousand years 
God gives to thee. 



A house of clay, the home of Fate, 
Haunted of Love and Sin, 
Where Death stands knocking at the gate 
To let him in. 

Conscience 

\\ WITHIN the soul are throned two powers, 

One, Love ; one, Hate. Begot of these, 
And veiled between, a presence towers, 
The shadowy keeper of the keys. 

55 



With wild command or calm persuasion 
This one may argue, that compel ; 
Vain are concealment and evasion — 
For each he opens heaven and hell. 



Youth 

I 

TV /T ORN'S mystic rose is reddening on the hills, 
Dawn's irised nautilus makes glad the sea ; 
There is a lyre of flame that throbs and fills 
Far heaven and earth with hope's wild ecstasy. — 
With lilied field and grove, 
Haunts of the turtle-dove, 
Here is the land of Love. 

II 

The chariot of the noon makes blind the blue 
As towards the goal his burning axle glares ; 
There is a fiery trumpet thrilling through 
Wide heaven and earth with deeds of one who 
dares. — 

With peaks of splendid name, 
Wrapped round with astral flame, 
Here is the land of Fame. 

Ill 

The purple priesthood of the evening waits 
With golden pomp within the templed skies ; 
There is a harp of worship at the gates 
Of heaven and earth that bids the soul arise. — 
With columned cliffs and long 
Vales, music breathes among, 
Here is the land of Song. 

56 



IV 

Moon-crowned, the epic of the night unrolls 
Its starry utterance o'er height and deep ; 
There is a voice of beauty at the souls 
Of heaven and earth that lulls the heart asleep. 
With storied woods and streams, 
Where marble glows and gleams, 
Here is the land of Dreams. 



Life's 
Seasons 



\ \T HEN all the world was Mayday, 

And all the skies were blue, 
Young innocence made playday 

Among the flowers and dew ; 
Then all of life was Mayday, 

And clouds were none or few. 

II 

When all the world was Summer, 

And morn shone overhead, 
Love was the sweet newcomer 

Who led youth forth to wed ; 
Then all of life was Summer, 

And clouds were golden red. 

Ill 

When earth was all October, 
And days were gray with mist, 

On woodways, sad and sober, 
Grave memory kept her tryst ; 

Then life was all October, 

And clouds were twilight-kissed. 

57 



IV 

Now all the world 's December, 
And night is all alarm, 

Above the last dim ember 

Grief bends to keep him warm 

Now all of life 's December, 
And clouds are driven storm. 



Old 
Homes 

/""^LD homes among the hills ! I love their 
^-^ gardens, 

Their old rock-fences, that our day inherits ; 
Their doors, 'round which the great trees stand like 

wardens ; 
Their paths, down which the shadows march like 

spirits ; 
Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted 

gardens. 

I see them gray among their ancient acres, 
Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled, — 
Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers, 
Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled, — 
Serene among their memory-hallowed acres. 

Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies — 
Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers — 
Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies, 
And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers, 
And all the hours are toilless as the lilies. 

I love their orchards where the gay woodpecker 
Flits, flashing o'er you, like a winged jewel ; 

58 



Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels 
checker 

With half-hulled nuts ; and where, in cool 
renewal, 

The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red wood- 
pecker. 

Old homes ! old hearts ! Upon my soul forever 
Their peace and gladness lie like tears and 

laughter ; 
Like love they touch me, through the years that 

sever, 
With simple faith ; like friendship, draw me after 
The dreamy patience that is theirs forever. 

Field and 
Forest Call 

^HERE is a field, that leans upon two hills, 

Foamed o'er with flowers and twinkling with 
clear rills ; 
That in its girdle of wild acres bears 
The anodyne of rest that cures all cares ; 
Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent 
And fragrance — as in some old instrument 
Sweet chords — calm things, that nature's magic 

spell 
Distils from heaven's azure crucible, 
And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well. 
There lies the path, they say — 
Come, away ! come, away ! 

There is a forest, lying 'twixt two streams, 
Sung through of birds and haunted of dim dreams ; 
That in its league-long hand of trunk and leaf 
Lifts a green wand that charms away all grief ; 

59 



Wrought of quaint silence and the stealth of 

things, 
Vague, whispering touches, gleams and twitterings, 
Dews and cool shadows — that the mystic soul 
Of nature permeates with suave control, 
And waves o'er earth to make the sad heart whole. 
There lies the road, they say — 
Come, away ! come, away ! 

Meeting in 
Summer 

A TRANQUIL bar 

Of rosy twilight under dusk's first star. 

A glimmering sound 
Of whispering waters over grassy ground. 

A sun-sweet smell 
Of fresh-reaped hay from dewy field and dell. 

A lazy breeze 
Jostling the ripeness from the apple-trees. 

A vibrant cry, 
Passing, then gone, of bullbats in the sky. 

And faintly now 
The katydid upon the shadowy bough. 

And far-off then 
The little owl within the lonely glen. 

And soon, full soon, 
The silvery arrival of the moon. 

And, to your door, 
The path of roses I have trod before. 

And, sweetheart, you ! 
Among the roses and the moonlit dew. 

60 






Swinging 

T T NDER the boughs of spring 

She swung in the old rope-swing. 

Her cheeks, with their happy blood, 
Were pink as the apple-bud. 

Her eyes, with their deep delight, 
Were glad as the stars of night. 

Her curls, with their romp and fun, 
Were hoiden as wind and sun. 

Her lips, with their laughter shrill, 
Were wild as a woodland rill. 

Under the boughs of spring 

She swung in the old rope-swing. 

And I, — who leaned on the fence, 
Watching her innocence, 

As, under the boughs that bent, 
Now high, now low, she went, 

In her soul the ecstasies 

Of the stars, the brooks, the breeze, — 

Had given the rest of my years, 

With their blessings, and hopes, and fears, 

To have been as she was then ; 
And, just for a moment, again 

A boy in the old rope-swing 
Under the boughs of spring. 



61 



Rosemary 

A BOVE her, pearl and rose the heavens lay ; 

Around her, flowers scattered earth with gold, 
Or down the path in insolence held sway — 
Like cavaliers who ride the elves' highway — 
Scarlet and blue, within a garden old. 

Beyond the hills, faint-heard through belts of wood, 
Bells, Sabbath-sweet, swooned from some far-off 

town ; 
Gamboge and gold, broad sunset colors strewed 
The purple west as if, with God imbued, 
Her mighty pallet Nature there laid down. 

Amid such flowers, underneath such skies, 
Embodying all life knows of sweet and fair, 
She stood ; love's dreams in girlhood's face and eyes, 
White as a star that comes to emphasize 
The mingled beauty of the earth and air. 

Behind her, seen through vines and orchard trees, 
Gray with its twinkling windows — like the face 
Of calm old-age that sits and smiles at ease — 
Porched with old roses, haunts of honey-bees, 
The homestead loomed dim in a glimmering space. 

Ah ! whom she waited in the afterglow, 
Soft-eyed and dreamy 'mid the lily and rose, 
I do not know, I do not wish to know ; — 
It is enough I keep her picture so, 
Hung up, like poetry, o'er my life's dull prose. 

A fragrant picture, where I still may find 
Her face untouched of sorrow or regret, 
Unspoiled of contact, ever young and kind, 
Glad spiritual sweetheart of my soul and mind, 
She had not been, perhaps, if we had met. 

62 



Ghost 
Stories 

\\T HEN the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, 

At twelve o'clock when the night is still, 
And pale on the pools, where the creek-frogs croon, 
Glimmering gray is the light o' the moon ; 
And under the willows, where waters lie, 
The torch of the firefly wanders by ; 
They say that the miller walks here, walks here, 
All covered with chaff, with his crooked staff, 
And his horrible hobble and hideous laugh ; 
The old lame miller hung many a year : 
When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, 
He walks alone by the rotting mill. 

When the bark of the fox comes over the hill, 
At twelve o'clock when the night is shrill, 
And faint, on the ways where the crickets creep, 
The starlight fails and the shadows sleep ; 
And under the willows, that toss and moan, 
The glowworm kindles its Ian thorn lone ; 
They say that a woman floats dead, floats dead, 
In a weedy space that the lilies lace, 
A curse in her eyes and a smile on her face, 
The miller's young wife with a gash in her head : 
When the bark of the fox comes over the hill, 
She floats alone by the rotting mill. 

When the howl of the hound comes over the hill, 
At twelve o'clock when the night is ill, 
And the thunder mutters and forests sob, 
And the foxfire glows like the lamp of a Lob ; 
And under the willows, that gloom and glance, 
The will-o'-the-wisps hold a devils' dance ; 
They say that that crime is re-acted again, 

63 



And each cranny and chink of the mill doth wink 
With the light o' hell or the lightning's blink, 
And a woman's shrieks come wild through the rain : 
When the howl of the hound comes over the hill, 
That murder returns to the rotting mill. 



Dolce far 

Niente 



I 



/"^VVER the bay as our boat went sailing 
^- > ^ Under the skies of Augustine, 
Far to the East lay the ocean paling 

Under the skies of Augustine. — 
There, in the boat as we sat together, 
Soft in the glow of the turquoise weather, 
Light as the foam or a seagull's feather, 
Fair of form and of face serene, 
Sweet at my side I felt you lean, 
As over the bay our boat went sailing 

Under the skies of Augustine. 

II 

Over the bay as our boat went sailing 
Under the skies of Augustine, 

Pine and palm, to the West, hung, trailing 
Under the skies of Augustine. — 

Was it the wind that sighed above you ? 

Was it the wave that whispered of you ? 

Was it my soul that said " I love you " ? 

Was it your heart that murmured between, 

Answering, shy as a bird unseen? 

As over the bay our boat went sailing 
Under the skies of Augustine. 

64 






Ill 



Over the bay as our boat went sailing 

Under the skies of Augustine, 
Gray arid low flew the heron wailing 

Under the skies of Augustine. — 
Naught was spoken. We watched the simple 
Gulls wing past. Your hat's white wimple 
Shadowed your eyes. And your lips, a-dimple, 
Smiled and seemed from your soul to wean 
An inner beauty, an added sheen, 
As over the bay our boat went sailing 

Under the skies of Augustine. 



IV 



Over the bay as our boat went sailing 

Under the skies of Augustine, 
Red on the marshes the day flared, failing 

Under the skies of Augustine. — 
Was it your thought, or the transitory 
Gold of the West, like a dreamy story, 
Bright on your brow, that I read ? the glory 
And grace of love, like a rose-crowned queen 
Pictured pensive in mind and mien ? 
As over the bay our boat went sailing 

Under the skies of Augustine. 



V 



Over the bay as our boat went sailing 

Under the skies of Augustine, 
Wan on the waters the mist lay veiling 

Under the skies of Augustine. — 
Was it the joy that begot the sorrow ? — 
Joy that was filled with the dreams that borrow 
Prescience sad of a far To-morrow, — 

65 



There in the Now that was all too keen, 
That shadowed the fate that might intervene ? 
As over the bay our boat went sailing 
Under the skies of Augustine. 

VI 

Over the bay as our boat went sailing 

Under the skies of Augustine, 
"T The marsh-hen cried and the tide was ailing 

Under the skies of Augustine. — 
And so we parted. No vows were spoken. 
No faith was plighted that might be broken. 
But deep in our hearts each bore a token 
Of life and of love and of all they mean, 
Beautiful, thornless and ever green, 
As over the bay our boat went sailing 

Under the skies of Augustine. 
St, Augustine, Fla. 



Words 

T CANNOT tell what I would tell thee, 

What I would say, what thou should st hear : 
Words of the soul that should compell thee, 
Words of the heart to draw thee near. 

For when thou smilest, thou, who fillest 
My life with joy, and I would speak, 

'T is then my lips and tongue are stillest, 
Knowing all language is too weak. 

Look in my eyes : read there confession : 

The truest love has least of art : 
Nor needs it words for its expression 

When soul speaks soul and heart speaks heart. 

66 



Reasons 

I 

"V^EA, why I love thee let my heart repeat : 
I look upon thy face and then divine 
How men could die for beauty, such as thine, — 
Deeming it sweet 
To lay my life and manhood at thy feet, 
And for a word, a glance, 
Do deeds of o]d romance. 

II 

Yea, why I love thee let my heart unfold : 
I look into thy heart and then I know 
The wondrous poetry of the long-ago, 
The Age of Gold, 

That speaks strange music, that is old, so old, 
Yet young, as when 't was born, 
With all the youth of morn. 

Ill 

Yea, why I love thee let my heart conclude : 

I look into thy soul and realize 

The undiscovered meaning of the skies, — 
That long have wooed 
The world with far ideals that elude, — 

Out of whose dreams, maybe, 

God shapes reality. 

Evasion 

I 

\\ THY do I love you, who have never given 
My heart encouragement or any cause? 
Is it because, as earth is held of heaven, 

Your soul holds mine by some mysterious laws ? 

67 



Perhaps, unseen of me, within your eyes 
The answer lies, the answer lies. 

II 

From your sweet lips no word hath ever fallen 
To tell my heart its love is not in vain — 

The bee that wooes the flow'r hath honey and pollen 
To cheer him on and bring him back again : 

But what have I, your other friends above, 
To feed my love, to feed my love? 

Ill 

Still, still you are my dream and my desire ; 

Your love is an allurement and a dare 
Set for attainment, like a shining spire, 

Far, far above me in the starry air : 
And gazing upward, 'gainst the hope of hope, 
I breast the slope, I breast the slope. 



In 

May 



\ \ 7"HEN you and I in the hills went Maying, 
You and I in the sweet May weather, 
The birds, that sang on the boughs together, 
There in the green of the woods, kept saying 
All that my heart was saying low, 
Love, as glad as the May's glad glow, — 
And did you know ? 
When you and I in the hills went Maying. 

II 

There where the brook on its rocks went winking, 
There by its banks where the May had led us, 

68 



Flowers, that bloomed in the woods and meadows, 
Azure and gold at our feet, kept thinking 
All that my soul was thinking there, 
Love, as pure as the May's pure air, — 
And did you care ? 
There where the brook on its rocks went winking. 



Ill 



Whatever befalls through fate's compelling, 
Should our paths unite or our pathways sever, 
In the Mays to come I shall feel forever 

The wildflowers thinking, the wildbirds telling 
The same fond love that my heart then knew, 
Love unspeakable, deep and true, — 
But what of you ? 

Whatever befalls through fate's compelling. 



Will You 
Forget ? 

T N years to come, will you forget, 

Dear girl, how often we have met ? 
And I have gazed into your eyes 
And there beheld no sad regret 
To cloud the gladness of their skies, 
While in your heart — unheard as yet — 
Love slept, oblivious of my sighs ? — 
In years to come, will you forget ? 

Ah, me ! I only pray that when, 

In other days, some man of men 

Has taught those eyes to laugh and weep 

With joy and sorrow, hearts must ken 

69 



When love awakens in their deep, — 
I only pray some memory then, 
Or sad or sweet, you still will keep 
Of me and love that might have been. 

Clouds of the 
Autumn Night 

/^LOUDS of the autumn night, 
^"^ Under the hunter's moon, — 
Ghostly and windy white, — 

Whither, like leaves wild strewn, 
Take ye your stormy flight ? 

Out of the west, where dusk, 

From her rich windowsill, 
Leaned with a wand of tusk, 

Witch-like, and wood and hill 
Phantomed with mist and musk. 

Into the east, where morn 

Sleeps in a shadowy close, 

Shut with a gate of horn, 

'Round which the dreams she knows 

Flutter with rose and thorn. 

Blow from the west, oh, blow, 

Clouds that the tempest steers ! 

And with your rain and snow 
Bear of my heart the tears, 

And of my soul the woe. 

Into the east then pass, 

Clouds that the night winds sweep ! 
And on her grave's sear grass, 

There where she lies asleep. 
There let them fall, alas ! 



70 



The Glory 
and the Dream 

/ T > HERE in the past I see her as of old, 

Blue-eyed and hazel-haired, within a room 
Dim with a twilight of tenebrious gold ; 
Her white face sensuous as a delicate bloom 
Night opens in the tropics. Fold on fold 
Pale laces drape her ; and a frail perfume, 
As of a moonlit primrose brimmed with rain, 
Breathes from her presence, drowsing heart and 
brain. 

Her head is bent ; some red carnations glow 
Deep in her heavy hair ; her large eyes gleam ; — 
Bright sister stars of those twin worlds of snow, 
Her breasts, through which the veined violets 

stream ; — 
I hold her hand ; her smile comes sweetly slow 
As thoughts of love that haunt a poet's dream ; 
And at her feet once more I sit and hear 
Wild words of passion — dead this many a year. 

Snozv 
and Fire 

pvEEP-HEARTED roses of the purple dusk 

And lilies of the morn ; 
And cactus, holding up a slender tusk 
Of fragrance on a thorn ; 
All heavy flowers, sultry with their musk, 
Her presence puts to scorn. 

For she is like the pale, pale snowdrop there, 
Scentless and chaste of heart ; 
The moonflower, making spiritual the air, 
Like some pure work of art ; 

7i 



Divine and holy, exquisitely fair, 
And virtue's counterpart. 

Yet when her eyes gaze into mine, and when 

Her lips to mine are pressed, — 

Why are my veins all fire then ? and then 

Why should her soul suggest 

Voluptuous perfumes, maddening unto men, 

And prurient with unrest ? 

Restraint 

T^VEAR heart and love ! what happiness to sit 

And watch the firelight's varying shade and 

shine 
On thy young face ; and through those eyes of 

thine — 
As through glad windows— mark fair fancies flit 
In sumptuous chambers of thy soul's chaste wit 
Like graceful women : then to take in mine 
Thy hand, whose pressure brims my heart's divine 
Hushed rapture as with music exquisite ! 
When I remember how thy look and touch 
Sway, like the moon, my blood with ecstasy, 
I dare not think to what fierce heaven might lead 
Thy soft embrace ; or in thy kiss how much 
Sweet hell, — beyond all help of me, — might be, 
Where I were lost, where I were lost indeed ! 



Why Should 
I Pine? 

T17HY should I pine? when there in Spain 

Are eyes to woo, and not in vain ; 
Dark eyes, and dreamily divine : 
And lips, as red as sunlit wine ; 

72 



Sweet lips, that never know disdain : 
And hearts, for passion over fain ; 
Fond, trusting hearts that know no stain 
Of scorn for hearts that love like mine. 
Why should I pine ? 

Because all dreams I entertain 
Of beauty wear thy form, Elain ; 

And e'en their lips and eyes are thine : 
So though I gladly would resign 
All love, I love, and still complain, 
" Why should I pine ? " 



When Lydia 
Smiles 

\ ~XT HEN Lydia smiles, I seem to see 

The walls around me fade and flee 
And, lo, in haunts of hart and hind 
I seem with lovely Rosalind, 
In Arden 'neath the greenwood tree : 
The day is drowsy with the bee, 
And one wild bird flutes dreamily, 
And all the mellow air is kind, 
When Lydia smiles. 

Ah, me ! what were this world to me 
Without her smile ! — What poetry, 
What glad hesperian paths I find 
Of love, that lead my soul and mind 
To happy hills of Arcady, 

When Lydia smiles ! 



73 



The 
Rose 

"YT'OU have forgot : it once was red 

With life, this rose, to which you said, — 
When, there in happy days gone by, 
You plucked it, on my breast to lie, — 
' ' Sleep there, O rose ! how sweet a bed 
Is thine !— And, heart, be comforted ; 
For, though we part and roses shed 

Their leaves and fade, love cannot die. — " 
You have forgot. 

So by those words of yours I'm led 

To send it you this day you wed. 
Look well upon it. You, as I, 
Should ask it now, without a sigh, 

If love can lie as it lies dead. — 
You have forgot. 

A Ballad 

of Sweethearts 

CUMMER may come, in sun-blonde splendor, 
To reap the harvest that Springtime sows ; 
And Fall lead in her old defender, 

Winter, all huddled up in snows : 

Ever a-south the love-wind blows 
Into my heart, like a vane asway 

From face to face of the girls it knows — 
But who is the fairest it 's hard to say. 

If Carrie smile or Maud look tender, 

Straight in my bosom the gladness glows ; 

But scarce at their side am I all surrender 
When Gertrude sings where the garden grows 

74 



And my heart is a bloom, like the red rose shows 
For her hand to gather and toss away, 

Or wear on her breast, as her fancy goes — 
But who is the fairest it 's hard to say. 

Let Laura pass, as a sapling slender, 
Her cheek a berry, her mouth a rose, — 

Or Blanche or Helen, — to each I render 
The worship due to the charms she shows : 
But Mary 's a poem when these are prose ; 

Here at her feet my life I lay ; 
All of devotion to her it owes — 

But who is the fairest it 's hard to say. 

How can my heart of my hand dispose ? 

When Ruth and Clara, and Kate and May, 
In form and feature no flaw disclose — 

But who is the fairest it 's hard to say. 

Her 

Portrait 

'I17"ERE I an artist, Lydia, I 

Would paint you as you merit, 
Not as my eyes, but dreams, descry ; 
Not in the flesh, but spirit. 

The canvas I would paint you on 

Should be a bit of heaven ; 
My brush, a sunbeam ; pigments, dawn 

And night and starry even. 

Your form and features to express, 
Likewise your soul's chaste whiteness, 

I 'd take the primal essences 
Of darkness and of brightness. 



75 



I 'd take pure night to paint your hair ; 

Stars for your eyes ; and morning 
To paint your skin — the rosy air 

That is your limbs' adorning. 

To paint the love-bows of your lips, 

I 'd mix, for colors, kisses ; 
And for your breasts and finger-tips, 

Sweet odors and soft blisses. 

And to complete the picture well, 

I 'd temper all with woman, — 
Some tears, some laughter ; heaven and hell, 

To show you still are human. 



A Song 
for Yule 



O ING, Hey, when the time rolls round this way, 
And the bells peal out, ' Tis Christmas Day ; 
The world is better then by half, 

For joy, for joy ; 
In a little while you will see it laugh — 
For a song 's to sing and a glass to quaff, 

My boy, my boy. 
So here 's to the man who never says nay ! — 
Sing, Hey, a song of Christmas-Day ! 



II 



Sing, Ho, when roofs are white with snow, 
And homes are hung with mistletoe ; 
Old Earth is not half bad, I wis— 
What cheer ! what cheer ! 
How it ever seemed sad the wonder is — 

76 



With a gift to give and a girl to kiss, 

My dear, my dear. 
So here 's to the girl who never says no ! 
Sing, Ho, a song of the mistletoe ! 

Ill 

No thing in the world to the heart seems wronj 
When the soul of a man walks out with song ; 
Wherever they go, glad hand in hand, 

And glove in glove, 
The round of the land is rainbow-spanned, 
And the meaning of life they understand 

Is love, is love. 
Let the heart be open, the soul be strong, 
And life will be glad as a Christmas song. 



The Puritans' 
Christmas 

H^HEIR only thought religion, 

What Christmas joys had they, 
The stern, staunch Pilgrim Fathers who 
Knew naught of holiday ? — 

A log-church in the clearing 

'Mid solitudes of snow, 
The wild-beast and the wilderness, 

And lurking Indian foe. 

No time had they for pleasure, 
Whom God had put to school ; 

A sermon was their Christmas cheer, 
A psalm their only Yule. 

They deemed it joy sufficient, — 
Nor would Christ take it ill, — 

77 



That service to Himself and God 
Employed their spirits still. 

And so through faith and prayer 

Their powers were renewed, 
And souls made strong to shape a World, 

And tame a solitude. 

A type of revolution, 

Wrought from an iron plan, 
In the largest mold of liberty 

God cast the Puritan. 

A better land they founded, 
That Freedom had for bride, 

The shackles of old despotism 
Struck from her limbs and side. 

With faith within to guide them, 

And courage to perform, 
A nation, from a wilderness, 

They hewed with their strong arm. 

For liberty to worship, 

And right to do and dare, 
They faced the savage and the storm 

With voices raised in prayer. 

For God it was who summoned, 

And God it was who led, 
And God would not forsake the love 

That must be clothed and fed. 

Great need had they of courage ! 

Great need of faith had they ! 
And lacking these — how otherwise 

For us had been this day ! 

73 



W ] 



Spring 

(After the German of Goethe, Faust, II) 
HEN on the mountain tops ray-crowned 
Apollo 

Turns his swift arrows, dart on glittering dart, 
Let but a rock glint green, the wild goats follow 
-Glad-grazing shyly on each sparse-grown part. 

Rolled into plunging torrents spring the fountains ; 
And slope and vale and meadowland grow green ; 
While on ridg'd levels of a hundred mountains, 
Far fleece by fleece, the woolly flocks convene. 

With measured stride, deliberate and steady, 
The scattered cattle seek the beetling steep, 
But shelter for th' assembled herd is ready 
In many hollows that the walled rocks heap : 

The lairs of Pan ; and, lo, in murmuring places, 
In bushy clefts, what woodland Nymphs arouse ! 
Where, full of yearning for the azure spaces, 
Tree, crowding tree, lifts high its heavy boughs. 

Old forests, where the gnarly oak stands regnant 
Bristling with twigs that still repullulate, 
And, swoln with spring, with sappy sweetness preg- 
nant, 
The maple blushes with its leafy weight. 

And, mother-like, in cirques of quiet shadows, 
Milk flows, warm milk, that keeps all things alive ; 
Fruit is not far, th' abundance of the meadows, 
And honey oozes from the hollow hive. 

Lines 

^\\ 7TTHIN the world of every man's desire 

Three things have power to lift his soul 
above, 

79 



Through dreams, religion, and ecstatic fire, 
The star-like shapes of Beauty, Truth, and Love. 

I never hoped that, this side far-off Heaven, 
These three, — whom all exalted souls pursue, — 
I e'er should see ; until to me 't was given, 
Lady, to meet the three, made one, in you. 

When Ships put 
out to Sea 

I 

TT'S" Sweet, good-bye," when pennants fly 

And ships put out to sea ; 
It 's a loving kiss, and a tear or two 
In an eye of brown or an eye of blue ; — 
And you '11 remember me, 

Sweetheart, 
And you '11 remember me. 

II 

It 's " Friend or foe?" when signals blow 

And ships sight ships at sea ; 
It 's clear for action, and man the guns, 
As the battle nears or the battle runs ; — 

And you '11 remember me, 
Sweetheart, 

And you '11 remember me. 

Ill 

It 's deck to deck, and wrath and wreck 

When ships meet ships at sea ; 
It 's scream of shot and shriek of shell, 
And hull and turret a roaring hell ; — 
And you '11 remember me, 

Sweetheart, 
And you '11 remember me. 
8o 



IV 

It 's doom and death, and pause a breath 

When ships go down at sea ; 
It 's hate is over and love begins, 
And war is cruel whoever wins ; — 
And you '11 remember me, 

Sweetheart, 
And you '11 remember me. 



The 

' ' Kentucky " 

(Battleship, launched March 24, 1898.) 
I 

T T ERE 'S to her who bears the name 

A Of our State ; 

May the glory of her fame 

Be as great ! 
In the battle's dread eclipse, 
When she opens iron lips, 
When our ships confront the ships 

Of the foe, 
May each word of steel she utters carry woe ! 

Here 's to her ! 

II 

Here 's to her, who, like a knight 

Mailed of old, 
From far sea to sea the Right 

Shall uphold. 
May she always deal defeat, — 
When contending navies meet, 
81 



And the battle's screaming sleet 

Blinds and stuns, — 
With the red, terrific thunder of her guns. 

Here 's to her ! 

Ill 

Here '» to her who bears the name 

Of our State ; 
May the glory of her fame 

Be as great ! 
Like a beacon, like a star, 
May she lead our squadrons far, — 
When the hurricane of war 

Shakes the world, — 
With her pennant in the vanward broad unfurled. 

Here 's to her ! 



Quatrains 



Moths and Fireflies 

C INCE Fancy taught me in her school of spells 

I know her tricks — These are not moths at all, 
Nor fireflies ; but masking Elrland belles 
Whose link-boys torch them to Titania's ball. 

II 

Autumn Wild-Flowers 

Like colored lanterns swung in Elfin towers, 
Wild morning-glories light the tangled ways, 
And, like the rosy rockets of the Fays, 
Burns the sloped crimson of the cardinal-flowers. 

82 



Ill 

The Wind in the Pines 
When winds go organing through the pines 
On hill and headland, darkly gleaming, 
Meseems I hear sonorous lines 
Of Iliads that the woods are dreaming. 

IV 

Opportunity 
Behold a hag whom Life denies a kiss 
As he rides questward in knighterrant-wise 
Only when he hath passed her is it his 
To know, too late, the Fairy in disguise. 



Dreams 
They mock the present and they haunt the past, 
And in the future there is naught agleam 
With hope, the soul desires, that at last 
The heart pursuing does not find a dream. 

VI 

The Stars 
These — the bright symbols of man's hope and fame, 
In which he reads his blessing or his curse — 
Are syllables with which God speaks His name 
In the vast utterance of the universe. 

VII 

Beauty 
High as a star, yet lowly as a flower, 
Unknown she takes her unassuming place 
At Earth's proud masquerade — the appointed hour 
Strikes, and, behold, the marvel of her face. 

83 



Processional 



T J NIVERSES are the pages 

Of that book whose words are ages 
Of that book which destiny 
Opens in eternity. 

There each syllable expresses 
Silence ; there each thought a guess is ; 
In whose rhetoric's cosmic runes 
Roll the worlds and swarming moons. 

There the systems, we call solar, 
Equatorial and polar, 
Write their lines of rushing light 
On the awful leaves of night. 

There the comets, vast and streaming, 
Punctuate the heavens' gleaming 
Scroll ; and suns, gigantic, shine, 
Periods to each starry line. 

There, initials huge, the Lion 
Looms and measureless Orion ; 
And, as 'neath a chapter done, 
Burns the Great-Bear's colophon. 

Constellated, hieroglyphic, 
Numbering each page terrific, 
Fiery on the nebular black, 
Flames the hurling zodiac. 

In that book, o'er which Chaldean 
Wisdom pored and many an eon 
Of philosophy long dead, 
This is all that man has read : — 

84 



He has read how good and evil, — 
In creation's wild upheaval, — 
Warred ; while God wrought terrible 
At foundations red of Hell. 

He has read of man and woman ; 
Laws and gods, both beast and human ; 
Thrones of hate and creeds of lust, 
Vanished now and turned to dust. 

Arts and manners that have crumbled ; 
Cities buried ; empires tumbled : 
Time but breathed on them its breath ; 
Earth is builded of their death. 

These but lived their little hour, 
Filled with pride and pomp and power ; 
What availed them all at last ? 
We shall pass as they have past. 

Still the human heart will dream on 
Love, part angel and part demon ; 
Yet, I question, what secures 
Our belief that aught endures ? 

In that book, o'er which Chaldean 
Wisdom pored and many an eon 
Of philosophy long dead, 
This is all that man has read. 



35 



SOME NOTICES OF MR. CAWEIN'S 
VERSES 

"I should like to praise the poetry of Madison 
Cawein, of Kentucky, which is as remote as Greece 
from the actual everyday life of his region ; as re- 
mote from it as the poetry of Keats was from the 
England of his day, and which is yet so richly, 
so passionately true to the presence and essence of 
nature as she can be known only in the Southern 
West. I named Keats with no purpose of likening 
this young poet to him, but since he is named it 
is impossible not to recognize that they are of 
the same Hellenic race ; full of like rapture in sky 
and field and stream, and of a like sensitive re- 
luctance from whatever chills the joy of sense 
in youth, in love, in melancholy. I know Mr. 
Cawein has faults, and very probably he knows it, 
too ; his delight in color sometimes plunges him 
into mere paint ; his wish to follow a subtle thought 
or emotion sometimes lures him into empty dusks ; 
his devotion to nature sometimes contents him with 
solitudes bereft of the human interest by which 
alone the landscape lives. But he is, to my think- 
ing, a most genuine poet, and one of these few 
Americans, who, even in their over-refinement, 
could never be mistaken for Europeans ; who per- 
haps by reason of it are only the more American." 
— William Dean Howells in Literature. 



" From the poetry of our day I select that of 
Madison Cawein as an example of conspicuous 
merit. Many American readers have enjoyed Mr. 
Cawein's productions. . . . But the appre- 
ciation of his poetry has never been as great as its 
merits would indicate. His poems are rather too 
good to be caught up on the babbling tongue and 
cast forth into mere popularity. They are caviare 
to the general ; and yet they have in them the best 
elements of popular favor. 

"Cawein is a classicist. He will have it that 
poems, however humble the theme, however tender 
the sentiment, shall wear a tasteful Attic dress. I 
do not intimate that Mr. Cawein's mind has been 
too much saturated with the classical spirit or that 
his native instincts have been supplanted with 
Greek exotics and flowers out of the renaissance, 
but rather that his own mental constitution is of 
a classical as well as a romantic mould. . . . 

"The themes of Cawein's poetry are generally 
taken from the world of romance. If there be any 
modern bard who can recreate a mediaeval castle 
and give to its inhabitants the sentiments which 
were theirs in the twelfth century, Cawein is the 
poet who can. He takes delight in the East. He 
is the Omar Khayyam of the Ohio Valley. He is 
as much of a Mohammedan as a Christian. He 
knows the son of Abdallah better than he knows 
Cromwell ; and has more sympathy with a Khalif 
than with a Colonel. He dwells in the romantic 
regions of life ; but the romance is real. The hope 
is a true hope. The dream is a true dream. The 
picture is a painting, and not a chromo. The love 
is a passion, and not a dilettante episode. Cawein's 
art is a genuine art. His verse is exquisite. Out 
of the three hundred and thirteen poems in the five 
3 



volumes under consideration there may be found 
hardly a false or broken harmony. . . ." — John 
Clark Ridpath, LL.D., in The Arena. 

"The rattlesnake-weed and the bluet-bloom 
were unknown to Herrick and to Wordsworth, but 
such art as Mr. Cawein's makes them at home 
in English poetry. There is passion, too, and 
thought in his equipment. . . ." — William 
Archer in the Pall Mall Magazine. 

"I find in the best pieces an intoxicating sense 
of beauty, a richness, that is rarely achieved, al- 
though every young poet nowadays strives after it. 
I find, too, a daring use of language which some- 
times, nay often, conducts to genuine and startling 
felicities." — Edmund Gosse. 



IUL 1 1 . 1899 



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